Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-05-21

. S&S~ZsSNNk liife life there ersi is @a gIa
GEORGE W. PECK mour of romance
This structure is a stone mansion, situated in
the center of beautiful grounds on the pic
turesque bluff which holds the stately edifice
high above the lake. Mr.. Peck is a
handsome, middle aged man, with a
full, frank face, a high forehead and
merry, twinkling, grayish eyes, He is one of
the few humorists of this country who has q
capacity for business as well as for fun. Ten
or twelve years ago Mr.. Peck didn't own a
nick or chick in this world" as he expresses
it. To-day he is rated as one of the rich men
of Wisconsin; owns, among other things, a
big newspaper, q mansion for residence, q
block or two of houses, considerable other
city real estate, a private yacht and sum-
ner resort hotel of his own. When the fact
is taken into consideration that Mr. Peck has
acquired his handsome fortune solely by the
drops OF ink shed from his industrious pen in
the short time of six or seven years, he Justly
takes rank as one of the remarkable men of
the country. For years he battled against
| great odds and hard luck, but a stroke of
| good fortune turned the tide and for several
years past he has been riding on the topmost
wave.
1t is probably not known to more than a
dozen people outside of Mr.. Peck's office that
800 copies Of his books have been sold.
and the most Of this great number in less than
six years time This gives him a distinction
not possessed by any ether individual in this
country His latest work. allow Private
Peck Put Down the Rebellion" was is
sued quite recently and large numbers
are being sold. The appearance of this
book at this time adds renewed interest
to Mr.. Pecks remarkable record as an
author. The last is the sixth book that
Mr.. Peck has published. All of them are
straight reprints from articles in the columns
OF his paper The most successful of these
books We're the three relating to his "Bad
Boy" OF the original book, $50, 900 copies
have been sold directly by the publishers
Besides large numbers of prated editions
were issued and sold in Canada, England
Germany and other countries. The books of
MIR. PecNs publishers show that to date in
the neighborhood of 800, 900 copies of these
books have been sold in this country alone.
Unless am greatly mistaken, this number
is largely i'll excess of any one other series of
books ever issued and, certainly, by all odds,
the largest i'll the short space of time men
toned. 49,
or course, every one who reads newspapers
has heard of Peck's Sun, of George w. Peck.
its editor and proprietor, and of the meteoric
career of "Peck's Bad Boy" These bad boy
sketches gave his paper great BOOM made
him an Independent fortune and sold his
books from one end of the country to the
other. Mr.. Peck had been writing funny
things for twenty years and was recognized
as humorst of no small caliber, but he
never seemed to strike a craze until he BEGAN
telling about his bad boy. He frankly admits
that his great streak of luck was due to the
merest accident, which he worked for all it
Ia ~. i
son came into his Office ahd told him Joke
boy named Watson had played on his father.
1t seems the Watson boy had written n note
to his father in n feminine hand, signing il
Daisy" The young lady told Mr.. Watson
that she was very much i'll love with him and
asked that he meet her at the postoffice cor
ner the next afternoon. Then the mother
was told about the prospective meeting, and
with her son was on hand at the hour named.
The old gentleman was there, but sDaisyn
was not, and the irate wife appeared for her.
terrible scene ensued, and but for the had
boys confession divorce would have re-
suited. Mr.. Peck wrote up the incident,
using assumed names, in a humorous vein,
ana the article was copied into thousands
of papers, convulsing readers from one end of
the country TO the other. The sketch made
such an instantaneous hit that Mr.. Peck fol-
lowed it up with a series in the same vein
using the same bad boy in all of them. and
these stories OF youthful precocity and cussed-
ness made the writer famous and rich In
less than years time the circulation of Mr..
iecks paper jumped from few thousand to
10000, and dozen presses were kept running
day and night to supply the demand for the
reprint Of the bad boy stories in book form
Peck suddenly found himself famous. He
was wined and dined by everybody who could
get hold of him. He received fattering
offers to write for prominent eastern papers,
and he was invited and inportuned to attend |
banquets i'll all of the large cities from New
YORK to San Francisco. Yachts, cows, |
horses, cigars, hats, cravats and other things |
were named after him, and money fairly |
poured in on him, all ON account Of the bad |
boy business -.
The writer was not the only one who
reaped harvest from the bad boy stories.
The first book set up the owners in business
and made them rich. 1t came about in this
way: AT that time Mr.. Peck's opinion of
books was not very high. He published a
humorous book when he was one of the ed
ltors of Pomeroy's old Democrat in New.
DIRK, and 1t was a dead and miserable fail
ure. After the sketches had been running in
fecks paper few months a Chicago pub
Usher asked Mr.. Peck what he would take
Tor the right to publish the series in book
form. The paper was in the throes OF a
boom; Peck remembered his first book and he
1idn't banker for repetition Of that experi-
'nce. So when the publisher told him to
scissor out the articles and he would give him
J 500 for thom, Peck was only too glad to
lose the bargain. He saw his mistake how
'ver, as soon as the book appeared. The
anallest kind of a royalty on this book alone
would have Melted him a cool $50 900. Since
hat time Mr.. Peck has retained an interest
q all of his books.